Despite the suspect’s initial claims that he had been hungry and acting purely out of self-interest when he held up a Paris-bound train last Friday, the French government is now officially investigating the foiled attempt by 26-year-old Moroccan gunman Ayoub El-Khazzani as a terrorist act.

While Amtrak officials may have been devastated, they could not have been surprised: The accident confirmed clear vulnerabilities in the safety system, shortcomings that the rail company’s internal watchdog had been warning about for more than two years.

Just days after the British government pledged $181 million in grants and loans to foster economically viable democratic transitions in Egypt and Tunisia, a Freedom of Information Act report confirmed that British military personnel are training the same Saudi security forces that were used to crush recent popular uprisings in Bahrain. (more)

The U.S. military is moving to trim its troop count in Iraq to 50,000 by Sept. 1, at which point the remaining personnel will assume an “advise-train-assist” role. But the American commander there says that if Iraqi security forces fall down on the job, U.S. troops could be thrust back into a combat role.

Two separate explosions in the Moscow subways killed at least 38 people, according to Russian officials. One of the blasts occurred at a station beneath the headquarters of the Russian security service. Officials said two women suicide bombers carried out the attacks, though no group has yet claimed responsibility.

In the first policy announcement of his mayoral term, London’s newly elected Boris Johnson has banned the consumption of alcohol on all public transport —including buses and trains—in the capital city beginning June 1. The ordinance is criticized by many transport unions, which foresee serious problems in its enforcement.

Indian police have accused Pakistan’s intelligence agency of planning the July train bombings in Mumbai, which killed 186 people. According to Mumbai’s police commissioner: “We have solved the 11 July bombings case. The whole attack was planned by Pakistan’s ISI and carried out by Lashkar-e-Toiba and their operatives in India….”

More than 200 families have threatened the French state railway with legal action if it refuses to compensate them for its role in transporting relatives to death camps during WWII. The railway companies argue they were forced to carry out the deportations, though a court in June sided with victims’ families.

Next time you’re stuck in gridlock, keep in mind that many American cities had fantastic public rail systems until Big Auto bought up all the tracks and scrapped them to make way for cars. The Observer reminds us that “it did not have to be like this.”